


Shattered From The Fall

by startrecking



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s01e05 "Choose Your Pain", Gen, Past Sexual Abuse, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-22 18:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12488184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrecking/pseuds/startrecking
Summary: Ash Tyler had never been a light sleeper. His mother used to joke about how he could have slept through a hurricane if he wanted to, but those days seem so absurdly far away now.





	Shattered From The Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically just a retelling of Tyler and Lorca's escape from the Klingon prison vessel in "Choose Your Pain" but from Tyler's POV and with a bunch of hero worshipping thoughts mixed in.
> 
> Title is from Waking by Cordelia Gartside
> 
> Also a huge shout out to Jim for being the biggest cheerleader as I battled through tears to write this. Thank you for listening to every rant I had as I over analyzed every interation between these two during the episode.

Ash Tyler had never been a light sleeper. His mother used to joke about how he could have slept through a hurricane if he wanted to, but those days seem so absurdly far away now. 

It felt like he hadn’t had a full night’s rest since his abduction from the USS Yeager and the battle that had started it all. Days bled into each other with the restless sleep he got, and without a comm to count the hours he couldn’t be sure how long he’d been aboard the Klingon prison vessel. All he knew was that it felt like ages.

He’d grown used to the distant screams from down the hall, barely even registered them anymore as he lay on the cold metal floor, but the  _ swish _ of the door and the heavy footfalls of the Klingon guards still struck horror to his core. 

It’s those noises that bring him back to reality after he let his thoughts wander yet again, and he’s quick to pull himself further into the hidden corner of the cell, behind the pipes where at least he has some false sense of safety. 

He’s been pulled out of rotation after being on the receiving end of one too many rounds of “Choose Your Pain”, left to heal up so that he can be thrown back into the thick of it again in a few days without risking death, because that would be the easy way out. 

Now, however, he watches through the gaps between the pipes as the guards drag in a limp body, another poor soul that doesn’t realise just what kind of hell they’ve ended up in, and let it fall to the floor. 

The door closes behind the Klingons again, and Tyler feels the adrenaline from the fear of the guards start to ebb away ever so slowly, and the ever looming exhaustion take its place. Maybe if he just lies down he can get some rest… and he can only hope he’ll wake up feeling a little bit more refreshed.

~*~

He doesn’t.

If anything, he feels even more tired when he jolts awake to the startled scream of Harry Mudd from across the cell. Tyler is laying with his back to the pipes, his body still aching from the beatings from days ago, and he can’t seem to find the energy to turn over and watch what’s actually happening.

He recognises Mudd’s voice, thick with sarcasm, through the haze of exhaustion, and another, much more rough voice, demanding to know where he is, and Tyler just wants to go back to sleep again. 

He’s verging on the edge of consciousness when he hears Mudd identify the stranger as  _ Starfleet _ , and then he slips into darkness yet again, the world around him turning to static as his body tries to desperately grasp at rest.

~*~

The shuffling of feet is what wakes him this time. It takes his eyes a few moments to adjust to the glow that bathes everything in the cell a deceptively warm red hue, but when he does manage to focus his vision he sees what he can only guess is the newest addition to their party standing over him. 

Despite the ache in every one of his muscles, Tyler pushes himself up and into a sitting position, so he doesn’t look as close to death as he really feels under the inquisitive gaze of the Starfleet uniformed man before him.

“I didn’t realize there were more of us in here,” the stranger says, almost apologetically as he watches Tyler obviously struggle to get beyond a slouch against the wall.

“I’ve been pulled out of rotation.” Tyler finds himself explaining his reason for hiding away, his bruised ribs making it hard to breathe as he speaks. “Sometimes they let us heal up, so we last longer.”

Only then does he really take in the uniform of the other, the bold golden stripes across the shoulders showing the rank Tyler had blatantly failed to notice earlier. “Shit,” he says, feeling his breath leave him a little bit. “You’re a captain?”

For a second his vision blurs as memories of the USS Yeager and Captain Maranville spring up, reminding him of those final seconds before the Klingons breached the hull and boarded the ship, shooting first and grabbing Tyler by force when he tried to fight back to ask questions later.

When he looks up again the other man is gone, and it’s his curiosity mixed with the need to  _ try harder _ that forces him, despite the complaints of his limbs, to his feet so he can follow.

He has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from groaning in pain when he slides down the wall next to the captain, but the sense of relief when he’s sat again is almost worth it. Once he’s down he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the small scrap of dry, stale bread that he’d been saving and slides it over the floor between them.

“Here, eat.” 

Tyler isn’t expecting the refusal, and it strikes him to the core just how much this man sat beside him reminds him of Maranville. How easily the selflessness comes when others are in need.

“Sorry, sir, I’m going to have to insist. We never know when they’ll feed us. You gotta keep up your strength. I already lost one captain… I won’t lose another.” 

It comes as a shock to him how easy it was to refer to the other as his captain. He doesn’t even know the man’s name yet, but he has an inexplicable urge to do good by him, to prove his merit… and maybe, just maybe, they can work together to save themselves from this shit hole. 

~*~

Tyler can hear the captain’s screams of agony from the cell, or at least he thinks they belong to him. It’s a noise he’s been so used to drowning out, trying not to pay attention to, but this time he’s actively listening for them. 

He doesn’t know what the Klingons are doing to him, what kind of torture they are putting the new captive through, but from the screams alone it sounds painful.

He’s on his feet immediately when the captain returns, being shoved into the cell once again. Tyler is reaching for him before he even realises it, but instead of falling to his knees as many have done before, the captain goes straight for the throat of Mudd, and all Tyler can do is watch.

“Now, let’s be adults, please-- No!” Mudd scrambles to try and grab for the insect as the captain rips  _ Stuart _ from the older man. Its squeals almost sound like a toy as he turns back towards Tyler and shows the creature sitting in his palm.

“Stealing food was just a diversion. He’s been transmitting everything we say to the enemy.” Tyler watches as the captain reaches underneath Stuart’s shell and plucks out what must be the transmitter, before crushing it under the heel of his foot.

Tyler’s eyes immediately fly up to Mudd, disbelief and hatred all mixing together. He knew the man wasn’t trustworthy, the way he was so quick to throw his pain onto others, but  _ literally _ bugging them went far beyond that.

“When I first got here,” the captain continues, taking a step back and squinting against the harsh red light as if it’s only just occurred to him now to react to the pain, “I dropped a little conversational nugget to see if either of you could be trusted, and I just had my words parroted back at me by the Klingon captain. You’ve been feeding intel on every prisoner that passed through here.”

Another spike of hatred courses through Tyler as his eyes flick back to the traitor in question. All the times that Tyler had spent  _ begging _ for it to stop, to be let go and even for death, and Harry Mudd had spent the entire time on the prison vessel  _ spying _ for her.

He doesn’t feel an ounce of remorse as the captain flings Stuart against the far wall, only disgust as he watches the cowering form of Mudd chase after it.

Tyler is moving before he even realises it. Two strides and then a reach and he’s slamming Mudd’s back against the wall of the cell and forcing himself into his personal space.

“You’re finished.” he all but spits, the  _ months _ of built up anger finally finding a target. “And when it comes time to choose our pain, we’re choosing you, until there’s nothing left.”

He wants nothing more than to beat the man to a pulp, but his body is already protesting. All the faces of past prisoners that have come and gone in the time since he’s been forced to call this cell a home were tortured for hours on end for information that wasn’t even relevant to the Klingons, and it was probably all because Mudd was kissing ass from the moment he was thrown in there with him.

When he finally pushes away from the traitor, Mudd is giving him a considering look, and Tyler falters for a moment when he realises that nothing he just said put any sense of fear into the man. 

“Captain,” Mudd’s eyes flicker to the man on the other side of the room, and Tyler follows his gaze, brow furrowed with confusion. “Are you really going to let this young, idealistic man humiliate himself by siding with you? Hm? Have you no decency,  _ Lorca _ ?”

In seconds, it feels like the floor has been ripped from under Tyler’s feet and that he’s in a free fall. The captain’s name —  _ Lorca _ , sounds like poison on Mudd’s tongue, and by addressing him directly he removed Tyler entirely from the conversation.

Desperately, he looks for an explanation from Lorca himself, hoping that whatever lie Mudd is about to spurt out is false, but there’s a hint of recognition in the captain’s eyes as he looks away that turns Tyler’s insides to ice.

Mudd has obviously caught that look as well, because there’s a small smirk that passes over his features as he continues on, his sarcasm back in place as always.

“Actually, that was a trick question. I know you don’t. We both know you lost that with your last command.”

“What’s he talking about?” Seeking clarification, Tyler looks to Lorca with a plea. Their eyes meet for a second, but Lorca is quick to look away again, and Tyler can feel the ice of his insides start to crack.

He’d been so quick to trust the captain based on the Starfleet insignia on his chest and the worn down edge of his features. He’d seen Lorca as hope, as a chance to get free of the cell he’d been confined to for so long, but for every biting word that Mudd utters he can feel his hope crumbling.

Tyler wants nothing more than for Lorca to explain himself, to right this misconstrued story that Mudd is twisting with his words, but he doesn’t, and instead Mudd takes Tyler’s plea as an invitation to tell the story himself.

“The tragic tale of the USS Buran.” Tyler’s eyes flick between the two other men, watching as Mudd stares unwaveringly at Lorca whilst the captain all but turns his back on the situation. 

“It was ambushed about a month into the war. The Klingons boarded it and blasted it into smithereens. Only one crewman managed to escape…”

Tyler feels his mouth go dry as Mudd turns his steady gaze on him, the self satisfactory smile he has makes the name sound even more wrong.  _ Gabriel Lorca _ .

“Apparently, the honorable captain was too good to go down with his ship.”

The silence that hangs between them is deafening, and only increases once Lorca looks up and meets Tyler’s gaze. Tyler is just about to give up his hope entirely when Lorca finally turns around to face him, and suddenly that small flame inside him flickers back to life back to life.

“Mudd’s only half right,” he says, watching Tyler for one more moment before letting his eyes fall to the ground. 

It’s then that Tyler notices the pained expression, something that he had been trying to hide behind his turned back, but now, exposed, Tyler begins to understand just why Lorca had initially stayed quiet.

“We were ambushed, and I did… escape. But I didn’t let my crew die.” Lorca straightens his back then, holding his head high and looking more like a captain than ever. “I blew them up.” 

The confession knocks the air out of Tyler, stated so matter of factly that he could almost have been talking about anything else. 

One of the things the Starfleet Academy teaches is to accept that there is always a possibility of a no-win scenario. Tyler knows first hand what one of them looks like, after experiencing the Klingon’s boarding the Yaeger, but he can’t even begin to fathom how bad Lorca’s situation had been.

“I knew what awaited them on Qo’onos. Degradation. Torture. Slow, public death. It’s the Klingon way, to spread terror… Not my crew. Not on my watch.” 

The pain from the memories slowly start to crack the facade of  _ stoic captain _ that Lorca had managed to cling on to till now. His breath becomes laboured, as if he’s reliving it, and Tyler’s heart aches as he watches the captain go through it all, and in that moment he realises that he never wants Gabriel Lorca to have to feel pain like that again.

~*~

The sound of the cell door opening is what finally breaks the silence. Tyler is quick to his feet, knowing that after trying to physically get between the guards and Lorca earlier means he’s back in rotation again.

Lorca, however, is not as quick to his feet, and Tyler watches carefully as the guards approach him as he’s still getting up. They all know what this is even before the phaser starts to charge.

“Choose your pain.” The command is as rough as ever, and Tyler’s eyes immediately dart to Mudd. He deserves it, they should name him and be done with it, but as he turns to look at back at Lorca he notices how far from the door the Klingon guards are stood after having to walk up to them.

He doesn’t have the time to tell whether Lorca has noticed this too, but as he watches the captain begin to raise his hand he can only hope he has. 

“Choose me, Captain.” The confusion in Lorca’s eyes when he turns to look at Tyler speaks volumes, but this could be the only chance they get at escaping the cell and he’s not going to let it go to waste. 

Mudd’s snivelling agreement goes ignored as Tyler keeps his eyes on Lorca, trying to convey in any way what is about to happen. If anything, Tyler can at least hope that Starfleet has trained their captains well enough to realise when they have a tactical advantage, even with guns pointed at them.

“You do this for me,” He says, looking towards the door and back quickly enough that the guards hopefully won’t notice. “Choose me.”

Lorca studies him for another moment, but Tyler stays unfaltering, even if he does sway a bit when his knee gives a twinge.

The guard prompts again, more urgently this time, and Tyler watches as Lorca has to turn away and close his eyes before pointing at him. 

He’s expecting the hits when they come, but that doesn’t mean they hurt any less than normal. He tries his best to roll with the slaps, jerking his head to lessen the blow as best he can, but he’s not so successful when he’s thrown at the wall.

The loud  _ clang _ is the result of his bad knee hitting one of the pillar juts, and he crumples back to the floor as the pain makes his vision go blurry for a moment. 

Now is not the time to be in pain though, and he tries to focus as best he can on the situation at hand as the guard drags him to the corner where he normally deals his final blow. 

The moments leading up to it feel like they drag out into a lifetime. Tyler can hear the phaser charging up again, meaning that someone looked away, and he knows that Mudd has never looked away from the dealing of pain as of yet.

Tyler hears, rather than sees, the moment that the guard spins back around, going in for the kick, but Tyler is already moving and on his feet by the time it comes down. 

Out of the corner of his eye he spots Lorca lunging for the second guard, and that’s when he truly knows he made the right decision, but he has his own Klingon to worry about.

He may have been cooped up in a prison vessel cell for the past seven months, but the years of hand to hand combat training from the Academy have still stuck with him, and he dodges the first swing with ease before immediately going in for a hit. 

The Klingon armour makes their movements slow and easy to predict, so it’s only a few seconds before he’s got the guard in a headlock, ready to snap his neck at a moment's notice. 

He looks to Lorca first though, needing to make sure that he’s  _ safe _ , and his eyes find the captain just in time to see him snap the neck of his own sparring mate anyway. 

The second sickly crunch of bone follows a split second later, and he drops the lifeless body immediately, ready to grab the gun thrown his way.

“Where the hell did that come from?” The surprised voice of Mudd comes from behind him, and Tyler turns to him with a smirk of his own this time.

“Getting out of here was always a two man job,” he says, limping backwards towards the door where Lorca is already checking the hall for anyone who might have heard the scuffle.

He turns towards the captain with a look of triumph in his eyes when his back hits the door frame. “I just waited till I found the right man.”

~*~

Mudd’s grovelling is nothing but a nuisance as Tyler hears the door slide shut behind him. It’s almost a sense of relief, a closure to the last seven months of his life, but they still have to actually get off the damn ship before he can really feel free. 

He falls back into his training from the Academy as if he were riding a bike, the maneuvers and positioning so deeply ingrained in him it would have been a surprise if he couldn’t remember them. The only real difference from the simulations back in San Francisco is the rifles, but really all that comes down to is a simple  _ point and shoot _ .

The first Klingon rounds the corner up ahead almost immediately after the door is closed, and before Tyler can even register its presence it’s evaporated in a puff of green smoke by Lorca. He doesn’t even get a chance to gather himself after that as phaser fire shoots over his head, and it’s pure muscle memory that has him turning on his heel and shooting at first sight. 

He can feel the injury to his knee throbbing again, an excruciating pain shooting through his leg and causing him to lag behind, as he follows Lorca down the hallway, but pushes it to the back of his mind the best he can. 

The distant wail of an alarm has him glancing at Lorca, a silent stoic stubbornness set in his eyes. Neither of them expected this to be a stroll in the park, but now that the guards are alerted it’s going to be that much harder, and Tyler would rather die than give up now.

With a nod passing between them, they continue on around the first corner, and are immediately met by another Klingon launching themselves at Lorca from the shadows of another hall.

He parrays the dagger easily, throwing the armoured Klingon off balance before stabbing it with the almost bayonet like spike at the tip of the rifle he’s wielding. Tyler only watches from over his shoulder, continuing to push on as best he can, but he’s still impressed by the captain’s fighting capabilities despite having being tortured not even hours before.

His mind wandered for a split second, but it was still a split second too much, and he didn’t catch yet another guard hiding down the next hall. Tyler’s phaser is knocked to the ground and he feels the cold clawed hand of the Klingon wrap around his throat and throw him up against the wall, knocking all of the air out of him.

For a moment he can’t help but think that this is it as he squeezes his eyes shut. The guard is looming over him, dagger held high and ready to strike, but then there’s a sudden burst of green light from behind his eyelids, and suddenly he’s dropping to the floor, knee buckling under him for good this time.

He opens his eyes just in time to see Lorca reaching for him and heaving him up to stand again with a soft muttered  _ Hey _ that seems way too out of place in these dark halls. Tyler wouldn’t have guessed it by first glance, but the captain seems deceptively strong as he easily supports Tyler and his almost useless leg whilst still marching them both forward.

Tyler tries as hard as he can, but the pain only grows for each step he takes, until he feels like he’s going to pass out if he takes another step. He takes it anyway, but the weight is too much strain on the damaged ligaments, and he topples like a Jenga tower.

Above him he can hear Lorca barking desperate orders to get up, but he knows it’s not plausible. The Klingons are on high alert already, the alarm still blaring through the halls, and Tyler knows they’re never going to make it out alive if he keeps slowing them down with his injury.

No, there’s only one way any of them are going to survive this.

“I’m slowing you down, Sir.” Tyler says through gritted teeth as he tries to push himself up to at least look Lorca in the eye so he knows he means it. “ _ Go _ .” 

There’s the slightest hesitation in the captain’s features then, just minutely as he scans the hallway seemingly weighing his options. If he were Vulcan, Tyler would probably say it was the only logical tactic, but because he’s human all he can think about is how he doesn’t want Lorca to die because of him.

Lorca has a ship, somewhere out there in the black, a ship that is missing its captain, and Tyler will be damned if he lets a crew go through the same pain he did when Maranville tried to sacrifice himself to save his crew.

“Alright,” Lorca finally says with a reserved sigh. “Take cover.” 

Tyler does as he’s told, scooting himself back into the crevice of the wall and hiding himself in the darkness as much as he can. It probably does little good, but he figures it’s the sentiment that counts, even if Lorca is inevitably leaving him here to die.

“I’ll find a way out and I’ll be back for you. You understand?” Tyler would have laughed at that, said that coming back would purely be a suicide mission, but there’s a burning determination behind Lorca’s eyes that has him nodding in response, and actually believing the captain.

For seven months, Tyler had felt so  _ alone _ in this prison, even with Mudd and the various other influx of prisoners being thrown in and out of the cells as time passed, but now, as he watches Lorca leave over his shoulder, when he should feel the most alone, he doesn’t.

The burning gaze of Lorca had ignited hope in Tyler from the moment he laid eyes on him, and that hope and the prospect of an actual future keeps the darkness from looming in.

He strains to watch the captain go, turning as far over his shoulder as he possibly can, but he just needs those extra moments. Needs the grounded feeling he gets from knowing there’s someone here that is actually willing to save him.

Tyler’s just about to settle back against the cold metal to wait when that feeling of being grounded is completely destroyed by the voice of his nightmares. 

“Did you really think you could leave me? After all we’ve been through?” The words send a chill running down his spine as he raises his eyes to meet L’Rell’s as the Klingon captain nears. 

Her sneer is as vicious as ever, a look that has caused Tyler so much pain whilst he’s been captive, and suddenly he feels a surge of adrenaline and  _ anger _ rush through him all directed at her.

It’s enough to get him on his feet, the adrenaline kick numbing the pain just slightly as he limps back a few steps trying to find his balance. 

As L’Rell continues to approach all the memories of moments where he’d wished he was dead come flooding back to him, one after the other, all with L’Rell’s face looming above him and pushing him down, making him feel weak and defenceless as she overpowered his sleep deprived and undernourished body -- And then something snaps.

Every ounce of hatred and frustration he’s felt for the past seven months all burst out of him, and he runs at her without a second thought. 

He’s weak still, unable to get a proper hit in as they brawl, but the longer he can keep her here, preoccupied, the longer Lorca has of getting free, and that’s what keeps him fighting.

She swings for him, and with a lucky jump backwards he manages to evade, leaving her off kilter. Tyler takes his chance and hunches down, charging at her with the last strength he has, knocking her up against the wall before using the momentum to throw her to the ground.

He’s on top of her in a second, arms swinging as fast as he can as he fuels each punch with memory after memory. He feels a bubble of giddiness deep down, and a brief thought crosses his mind that this is excellent therapy after everything that has happened, but that is quickly replaced by yet another flash of hot red anger. 

The sound of blaster fire is what stops his seemingly endless barrage, a moment of hesitation as he tries to look around to see whether it’s directed at him, but L’Rell recovers faster than he could anticipate and grabs him by the shoulder to butt her head against his. 

Tyler recoils in pain, dazed, and all it takes is one shove and he’s falling off of her to the ground. He doesn’t catch what happens next, the pain causing tears to swell in his eyes for just a moment, but then he hears the blood curdling scream of the Klingon captain and glances up to see Lorca coming down the hall.

_ He did come back _ , is all he can think as he slowly tries to drag himself towards the man he owes his life to. 

“Tyler, I found the docking bay. Get up, let’s go.” And it’s as simple as that. Once again Lorca is reaching down and picking him up with that surprising strength. Tyler tries his best to support himself on his badly hurt knee, the adrenaline definitely helping dull the pain for now. 

He can’t even bring himself to look back over his shoulder as they head towards the docking bay. All he can think about is gripping tightly to Lorca’s shoulder and how the captain followed up on his promise after all.

~*~

Navigating the Klingon raider doesn’t come to him nearly as easily as the tactical training had, and it’s really only by guidance of Lorca that they manage to escape the prison vessel, though there’s still five other raiders hot on their tail. 

Seeing the stars again for the first time since the destruction of the Yeager, however, calms him more than he could ever have imagined, and Lorca’s instructions are clear enough to set him at ease.

The controls are still inexplicably stiff though, and it physically hurts when he has to evade the two ships diving on them, pulling the controls as much as he can with what little strength he has left.

From behind him, Lorca is handling the weaponry, and as Tyler evades another raider he hears the telltale sound of phasers locking onto a target. He watches as two bright pulses shoot for the Klingon vessel, and explode in a flash of scorching bright light.

He hears a grunt from behind him, and suddenly remembers the captain’s aversion to light in the cell, and slowly connects the dots.

“Your eyes,” he says, with a voice that seems way to calm for their circumstances right now. “That happened when you destroyed the Buran, didn’t it?”

“We choose our own pain,” Lorca replies solemnly after just a beat of silence, echoing the harrowing words of the Klingon guards. “Mine helps me remember.”

Any doubt left in his mind following Mudd’s little exposé of the captain in the cell is erased with those few words. 

The USS Buran had been destroyed almost six months ago, but for all that time Lorca had been punishing himself, forcing himself to never forget the events of the battle that had left him with the decision of whether to let his entire crew be taken prisoners by the Klingons, or give them all the dignified death they deserved.

Science and medicine was so advanced that surely Lorca could have had his eyes fixed by now, but instead he had opted to live with the pain as a reminder. The merciless warmonger that Harry Mudd had described would never have done that.   
  
The comm line beeps with an incoming hail before Tyler even has a chance to reply and as he hears the familiar call out in the name of the Federation, he can’t help the smile that spreads across his face.    
  
He’s so close to freedom for the first time in seven months that he can almost taste it.

~*~

Tyler never thought he would appreciate the slight sensation of falling that being beamed onto a ship gave him, but as he feels his knee give way under him yet again he finds himself, for just a split second, loving it more than his own mother.

Above him, Lorca says something about  _ Black Alert _ and then suddenly the lights are dimming as yet another another alarm blares out over the PA, and for a moment Tyler’s stomach drops as he thinks maybe they’re not out of it just yet after all, but as quickly as it started, the alarm stops again.

“Easy Soldier,” Lorca says, laying a heavy hand on Tyler’s soldier as the lieutenant tries to find his breath again, “You’re home.” 

_ Home _ , Tyler thinks, is a weird way of putting it. He’s never set foot on Lorca’s ship before and they’re light years from his actual home, but as he looks up into Lorca’s soft smile he can’t help but feel like maybe it isn’t just the place that makes it home.

He finds himself trying to convey his gratitude as best he can, but completely unable to find the right words that could possibly express just how thankful he is he resorts to the platitude of: “Thank you, Captain.”

“For what?” Lorca responds, his soft smile shifting into a bit of a humor tinged smirk. “Dragging you back into the war on a ship with a target on its back?”

If you had told Lieutenant Ash Tyler two years ago that he would have taken war over safety any day, he would probably have laughed at you, but now, body shaking from exhaustion on the floor of the USS Discovery’s transporter, he’s never meant his words as much as he does when he looks up into the eyes of Captain Gabriel Lorca and says:

“There’s no place I’d rather be.”


End file.
